Ali Mortazavi, the former chief executive of Silence Therapeutics, is to take over at e-Therapeutics PLC (LON:ETX) following wholesale board changes, with the firm also launching a £1.6mln refinancing.
Current e-Therapeutics chairman Iain Ross is standing down, alongside chief executive Ray Barlow and chief financial officer Steve Medlicott.
Mortazavi will take up the role of executive chairman with Michael Bretherton joining as new independent non-exec.
The placing will be at 3p per share, a 24% discount to last night’s close, with Mortazavi and major shareholder Richard Griffiths (29.3%) both subscribing to the share issue.
Mortazavi said: "Having spent an extensive period of time conducting deep due diligence on e-therapeutics' NDD platform, I am extremely impressed with the company's capabilities.
Trevor Jones, who is the only director staying on, added: “The team at e-therapeutics has developed a unique approach to identifying druggable compounds that can disrupt these biological pathways in ways that are potentially profoundly more active than conventional single target-based drug discovery.
“The interest shown by pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the e-therapeutics NDD and GAINS platforms is testament to their potential to provide significantly improved therapies," he added.